


Beginnings and Endings Exist Only in the Mind

by corvidity



Category: Gintama
Genre: Acceptance, Even More Artistic License with Trees, Family, Friendship, Gen, Growing Up, Mild Angst, Not Canon Compliant, Slice of Life, Vague Magical Realism, parenting is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 01:52:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18681727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corvidity/pseuds/corvidity
Summary: After the war ends, Gintoki learns how to let his children grow up.





	Beginnings and Endings Exist Only in the Mind

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve had this fic on my hard drive for two years (yes, really), so it’s zero percent compliant with recent canon and more an idea of how Gintoki and the Yorozuya could’ve moved on after a theoretical final battle. The only reason I dusted this off is because I like this fic’s emotional core, and, well, I couldn’t resist more tree metaphors.

Gintoki lays the final blow, as is fitting for the series’ protagonist. In gravity-defying style he is above the figure of their former teacher – no – the thing that killed Shouyou, its mortality whittled to a stub, about to taste the business end of his sword. It feels less like a massive explosion of his rage and grief than a quiet ‘oh’, an exhalation from both as Utsuro smiles, almost in relief, and Gintoki sees the second war of his life end, only this time, it really is the end.

They troop back to Edo and Kabukicho in middling to high spirits. Lake Toya swings by his side, sturdy and trustworthy. The best friend he’s ever had, apart from Kagura, Shinpachi and Sadaharu. And Zura. Sakamoto and Mutsu too. Hell, might as well throw Takasugi in by his ungrateful ass. If he’s going to include Takasugi he’ll have to count the Shinsengumi, his landlady and Catherine and Tama, old Gengai… Making Lake Toya his – Gintoki tries counting his fingers. Fourteenth best friend? Does he rank it above Madao?

But Gintoki is swept along on the tides of celebration, and he abandons the count. They’re all his comrades, his friends, his family.

*

The weather has been lovely of late. Gintoki can’t remember the last time he’d seen such blue skies, bright days, or rowdier streets. But no matter how beautiful the summer it can’t compare to a certain weather reporter whom he will one day marry. Perhaps. Sakata Gintoki has a lot of things to do, and enough time to do none of them. He’ll leave the world-saving to someone else for a change. Let this old war veteran kick back, eat parfaits, and exploit his employees in peace.

“Gin-chan.”

Speak of the red-haired devil.

He flops over on the couch to face her. “What?”

“Uh, it’s about…” She frowns, twisting her hands together. His good mood takes a minor hit. “Do you… do you remember when I said I wanted to follow Papi?”

“What, into space?”  

“Uh-huh.”

He doesn’t like the direction this conversation is taking. She can’t be leaving so soon. Umibouzu and Kamui are hardly fit to travel, notwithstanding the tattered remains of animosity between father and son, a decade-long guilt on Umibouzu’s part – enough to put a large question mark to inter-planetary travel as a family, surely.

“Y-you’re not leaving… are you?”

The last part pops in of its own accord, a subconscious addition. Somewhere, Gintoki knows that Kagura’s dedication to family is fierce enough to revive a dying star. No amount of bad blood would stop her from dragging her brother and father to the ends of the universe.

To his surprise, Kagura bursts into forceful denial. “No, of course not!” She lowers her head. “Not yet, anyway. Papa and Kamui aren’t well enough to travel yet, but once they are we’ll work something out.”

Gintoki stares. It isn’t happening _now_ but it _will,_ and selfishly he wonders what the point of defeating Utsuro was if everyone leaves anyway. But he reigns in the thought before it can reach its logical conclusion. Utsuro should be left in the past, where he belongs.

“I’m not sure when we’re leaving, but I wanted you to know.”

Kagura is hardly ever short on words, nor does she think them through. This new soft-footing, this consideration, is beneath her. It’s vulgar for its finesse, because the Kagura he knows doesn’t spare anyone, least of all him, their feelings. She rides roughshod over them on Sadaharu, laughing as she goes.

“Oh,” he says. _Very eloquent, Sakata._ “Have you told Shinpachi?” 

Gintoki doesn’t know why all he can do is ask questions. His whole mind is a question mark.

“I will.”

“How are they, by the way?” There he goes, reduced to a question machine.

“Papa’s getting used to his prosthetic arms, and Kamui isn’t talking much but at least he hasn’t broken any more hospital beds.” She pauses, a small but genuine smile on her lips. “Would you like to see them?”

Gintoki needs to bring a halt to himself and the feeling crawling up his chest, wailing in uncommon envy. “Maybe later,” he manages.

She makes her excuses, leaving to see her father, and suddenly Gintoki wants nothing more than to feel the heft of his sword, solid and unswerving, his anchor to the world.

*

Shinpachi drops by later, looking remarkably unperturbed. Kagura hasn’t returned yet. 

Gintoki is still lying on the sofa, dead fish eyes fixed on the ceiling. He takes in Shinpachi’s unruffled expression and quiet sigh as he surveys the state of the apartment.

“Oi, she told you she was leaving, didn’t she?” There’s a pleading undertone to his voice, hoping to elicit from Shinpachi the same stupefaction he’d earlier felt.

“Yeah, she came to the dojo after telling you.” The boy inspects the floor with his usual meticulous eye, then goes to fetch the broom. “It makes me sad to think we won’t see her for a while, but I’m sure Kagura-chan needs the time with her father and brother to clear the air.”

“Uh – yeah.”

Shinpachi starts his sweeping, humming tunelessly as he goes. Gintoki isn’t entirely certain when the one most prone to outbursts over the smallest of changes became the cool-headed boy – young man? – before him. He and Kagura have grown up, despite the nature of their series. They’re ready to find their own way in the world without him. It should be a cause for celebration, an excuse for a party. But he’s just… sad.

“Oh, there’s something I wanted to tell you.”

The broom comes to a stop, and Gintoki feels the familiar lurch.

“We’re getting lots of new students at the dojo,” Shinpachi says. He grimaces, adjusts his glasses. “I’ll need to train them, because Aneue can’t do everything herself. I know it doesn’t look good for the Yorozuya –”

“Okay,” Gintoki says faintly. “It’s okay.”

*

Kagura slips in later that evening, and she and Gintoki share a quiet dinner before they retire for the night. Soon, she is asleep and Sadaharu’s gentle snoring fills the apartment. Gintoki, however, finds sleep hard to come by, and winds up in the living room nursing a cup of warm milk. After a second’s thought, he retrieves Lake Toya and props it up against the sofa. It never hurt to be prepared.

He knows it shouldn’t surprise him to see everyone moving on. Shinpachi and Kagura, as much as he considers them his charges, to protect and nurture, need to spread their wings. He should be glad to see them off. It’ll be quieter around the apartment, and Odd Jobs Gin-chan will in practice be reduced to one person, but in their hearts they’ll always be the Yorozuya.

Yeah. It’ll all be okay, sure thing.  

A faint rustling catches Gintoki’s attention. He frowns. It’s not coming from inside. The single light of the living room should be enough to deter potential burglars, but maybe this one is thicker than most. He’s good, though. Apart from the earlier rustling he steps lightly, making unhurried movements so as not to rouse any attention from the neighbours.

The steps are coming closer. Gintoki creeps to the door, wooden sword in hand. Routine pulls his body by invisible strings, feet positioning themselves parallel to the threshold, eyes scanning the darkness beyond the shoji. It’s not the war, he knows, but his body doesn’t. What if there are still people out there baying for his blood? He can’t let any harm come to his sleeping charges.

The moonlight picks out the shape of a tall figure. The doorframe rattles, shoji sliding back, and Gintoki has Lake Toya raised when he sees a familiar face –

“Zura?” he hisses.

“Gintoki!”

Katsura Kotarou, blinking by the faded light of a waning moon, stands frozen at the entrance. His dark hair is shorter, but Gintoki would recognise Zura anywhere. Grumbling, he lowers his sword.

“Zura,” he sighs, a mixture of relief and irritation, “what are you doing here so late? And why did you think you needed to creep up like some thief?”

He shrugs helplessly. “Old habits.”

Gintoki pokes his head into the cool night, silver hair glinting dully as he looks from side to side. “Where’s that duck of yours?”

“Elizabeth is visiting relatives.”

“You – what? I didn’t know it had family.” Gintoki hasn’t even gotten his head around Kagura and Shinpachi setting off.

Katsura coughs. “You never asked. She had a family before coming to Earth, and now that the war is over she wanted to see how they were doing.”

“Did you have to come here to find someone else to humour you?”

“Could we perhaps continue this conversation inside?”

Rolling his eyes but acceding, Gintoki allows his old comrade to shuffle into the warmth of the apartment. He drops his sword against the couch and rustles up some tea with boiled water and a teabag, then sets it in front of Katsura. He takes a tentative sip, and pulls a face.  

“Your tea still tastes awful.”

“Watch it,” Gintoki replies, falling into their easy banter, “you’re testing my hospitality here. I could throw you out for insulting my teabags.”

“You wouldn’t,” Katsura sniffs, but drinks the tea without further comment.

“Weren’t any of your men willing to take you in?” Gintoki downs the rest of his milk, which is by now unpleasantly lukewarm. A small shake of the head, dark hair gracefully touching the rim of the cup.  

“We’ve officially disbanded. Most of them had lives to return to, and I wouldn’t want to impose on them the burden of hiding a war criminal.”

Gintoki scoffs. “You know you’re not technically on the wanted list anymore? The Shinsengumi wouldn’t raid any poor soul’s house to root you out. Besides, how does that make crashing here any better? You’re imposing the burden on me!” 

A feeble protest emanates from behind the teacup. “You understand.”

“Yes, I understand how annoying you are, Zura. If you’re looking for a place to stay, it can’t be here. I’ve got kids, you know, kids!” Gintoki bites his lip. “And a dog,” he tacks on lamely. “You know what they say, three’s a crowd.”

He trails off feeling thoroughly stupid. He can’t convince himself, and Zura has known him long enough to see through his fakery, especially when it’s this blatant. “I’ll…refill the tea.”

He takes his time boiling the water and selecting the teabag – chrysanthemum or rose, herbal, Shinpachi’s favoured shincha – nope, definitely not – until he settles on plain old matcha.

Katsura is waiting for him in the same pose, tipping his head in thanks for the tea.

He blows steam off the top of the cup, but his eyes are still fixed on Gintoki. “Things have changed. The world, _our_ world – here, Edo, is changing. Sensei is at peace. Even Takasugi is more prone to cracking a smile these days. We can start making amends and looking ahead.”

“Takasugi smiling?” Gintoki snorts. “Doesn’t a kitten die every time he does?”

“Certainly not!” Katsura exclaims with all the literal indignation Gintoki has come to expect of him. “The stray cats of Kabukicho have never been better fed.”

Gintoki chokes and hisses in pain as the still hot tea dribbles down his chin. “Are you telling me _he’s_ feeding the cats? Those dumpster-diving bastards that get more by begging Granny for scraps than me?”

“I thought it would be calming.”

Hapless in the face of such news, Gintoki can only shake his head. Takasugi, fond of animals? Had he really survived the last fight with Utsuro? Everything since then has felt like a fantasy.

“He’s acquitted himself surprisingly well,” Katsura continues. “Not that I can tell you what to do, but you might like to see him sometime.”     

_That’s_ out of the question. “Did you come here to lecture me?”

“No.”

“So why did you come?”

The silence stretches.

Gintoki isn’t aware he’s holding his breath until he looks at his hands. They’re trembling, possessed by the envy and despair and uncertainty of what he amounts to in this new chapter of life. He is a sitting duck. It feels like it did _before,_ the vast question mark of his future bearing down on his chest.

“Gintoki.”

His hand, of its own volition, finds the hilt of Lake Toya. Solid. Firm. Reliable. Won’t leave him.

“I came here because I understand.”

In the wan light of the moon, Katsura’s face is uncannily kind.

*

Zura is strangely ethereal when he wants to be, and he doesn’t stay. As sunlight filters into the apartment, the only sign of his midnight visit is the second teacup on the coffee table. Gintoki hauls himself up from the sofa, where he appears to have fallen asleep.

Kagura pads into the living room, hair mussed; she yawns and blearily stares through the extra cup. “Morning.” She squints at Gintoki, question forming on her lips.

“Ah, Kagura-chan, good morning!” he chirps sotto voce. “You sleep well?”

“Uh-huh.” A small frown. “Um, what are you doing out here?”

“Just looking out for cat burglars, ha ha.”

“You know Sadaharu would’ve chased any cats off, right?”

She yawns again, wide and rude, before wandering to the bathroom.

Staring at the empty space she left, Gintoki wonders whether the previous night was all a dream, if the days post-Utsuro are his imagination. Time is unmoored, unspooling through his memory. Demons and debris he long put to sleep are awakening in different forms; questions of which way is forward and which back.

But his sword is where he left it, solid and real. He picks it up, tossing it from hand to hand. At least this much he can count on.

Kagura emerges from the bathroom and attacks the contents of the kitchen with the voracity of a growing Yato adolescent, a quick and painful reminder that his budget is being dragged along too.

“Put that back where you found it!” he yells just as Kagura is about to upend a tub of custard into her mouth. “Just sit down and I’ll make you something, so spare my fridge.”

She complies with a dissatisfied grumble. “Better be good.”

Luckily, eggs done sunny side up with a pile of crust-less bread is good enough to save Gintoki from a premature run to the grocery store (or down to Otose’s to beg for money), and Sadaharu doesn’t ask for anything more than his usual dog food.

Kagura burps contentedly, Gintoki still picking at his eggs with a fork.

“Gin-chan, can I sleep over at Soyo’s tonight?”

He looks up. The way she asks it, it’s more a formality than genuinely seeking permission. It’s a change from when she’d gaze at him imploringly, then pout when he insisted he accompany her. Should he feel honoured she’s even informing him, or insulted that she believes he’ll play along like some doting father proud of his daughter’s independence?

He goes for the combo hit: the honoured, proud dad. It pains him (just a little bit), but it’s the right thing to do. 

“Bring back some jewellery,” he suggests. “We’re running out of things to pawn.”

“Uh-huh,” she replies. “Don’t rob a bank without me, kay?”

She and Sadaharu are gone before the morning is over. In the period of emptiness between her departure and Shinpachi’s arrival, Gintoki makes a nominal effort at tidying up the apartment – he first tackles the plates leftover from breakfast, but once they’re in the sink he can’t muster the effort to turn on the tap.

Gintoki ends up in the living room again, staring at the shoji.

Being an empty-nester is not the first thing he would’ve predicted of himself when the war ended. Back then he hadn’t even had the luxury of looking ahead, too busy scraping out the alcohol and blood from his mouth the mornings after, tending to cuts and scrapes accumulated from drunken nights. He’d run himself ragged at Otose’s behest, doing all he could to repay her kindness. In those early years he’d been more a ghost of the war than a living person.

It’s different now that Utsuro is gone, and that chapter of his life closed for good. Even Katsura, the airiest of them all, can see it. He _knows_ there is a difference because of how much has changed since the first time he scrounged for food at the grave of his future benefactor’s husband. But that old ache persists.

Without thinking, he heads down to the bar.

“Here comes the rabble-rouser,” Otose drawls at his entrance, raising an eyebrow in surprise at his slouch. “Not that you can even rouse that mop of silver hair. Something on your mind?”

“A drink.”  

She obliges; he seats himself on a barstool and stares at it forlornly.

“Hey, Granny. Does it feel different to the end of the last war?”

Otose lights up a cigarette. “Kabukicho’s still the same, isn’t it? It’s not going to stop being a mess any time soon.” She taps a clot of crumbling ash off the end. “You and your kids are still here.”

“Do you think I’m scared of things changing?” 

“Can’t say,” she replies. “You come down here looking like a ghost, what else am I supposed to think?”

Maybe, he supposes, staring at the amber liquid, she has a point.   

*

Later, after Shinpachi has come and gone for the day, it occurs to him that there’d be no room in Kagura’s suitcase for a giant dog when she leaves. Does that mean Sadaharu will stay with him? Or will she conjure up a way to smuggle him aboard just as she’d smuggled herself to Earth?

Troublesome thing, intergalactic trips. You’re never sure what to take with you, or what might hitch a ride in transit. Gintoki knows he’d need few things – Lake Toya, his wits, maybe some long-life strawberry milk. He’s survived on less. But he struggles to imagine not hearing Kagura’s snoring, Shinpachi’s awful humming as he cleans.

They’ve become permanent hitchhikers whose weight he’s grown used to carrying. In zero-g, he might welcome the relief of a burden off his shoulders, but that rings too much of _before –_ the emptiness, the lightness of his body, like a shell without a crab; and above all, the loneliness. As much as Shinpachi and Kagura had been children in need of a mentor, he’d needed them even more.

Now it seems they’re ready to move on, while he, old and decrepit, cannot bear to let go. Things change, start, begin again, come to an end. Gintoki doesn’t know which stage he’s at. He’s drifting through that black vacuum once more, reaching out for hands that are already fading into the distance.    

*

He doesn’t mean to bump into Takasugi – when has he ever? – but they cross paths in the marketplace on one of Gintoki’s strolls around Kabukicho, reminiscent of their first reunion after the Joui war. There’s some celestial force laughing at him from above, he’s sure.

“Ah, Bakasugi.”

The former Kiheitai commander has always been an imposing man in the way he stood and walked, the stride of one who deigns all others beneath him. But here his figure is less pronounced, looking more amongst the crowd than above them. His one good eye has lost some of its darkness; it focuses firmly on the man before him, not another man in another time.

“Gintoki. Fancy seeing you around.”

“Same to you.”

“Shouldn’t you be running that odd jobs business of yours?”

“I’m on extended leave.”  

“More like you’ve taken leave of your senses,” Takasugi retorts with typical dismissiveness. “But I should hardly be surprised.”

Gintoki side-eyes him. “I don’t see you doing any better. Feeding stray cats? Mingling with the common folk? Not scared of catching the venereal diseases we’re all doubtless carrying?”

“I see you’ve been speaking with Katsura,” Takasugi sniffs. His ever-present kiseru is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps it’s tucked into a fold of his kimono. He wouldn’t abandon his trademark object so easily, just as Gintoki wouldn’t give up Lake Toya without a decent fight (in a drunken fight, sure, but not one where he’s completely sober).

“C’mon, Bakasugi. When were you ever into cats? Thought insects and creepy-crawlies were more your thing.”

Takasugi stiffens. “Playing the idiot, as usual.”

“Hah, well,” and Gintoki averts his gaze to the space just over Takasugi’s shoulder, “we don’t all hide our idiocy beneath fancy words and clothes.”

Infuriatingly, Takasugi laughs. It’s more of a chuckle, but absent its hallmark malice. If he’s learned to take a joke at his expense, then the world has changed more than Gintoki thinks. 

“So where are your charges? Picking up the slack for you, I assume?”

“When have you ever been interested in Shinpachi and Kagura?” Gintoki shoots back. The old protectiveness rises on instinct.

“Please don’t mistake my interest as anything but a reflection of your poor worker relations.”

“Oh, so you’re _worried_ about them, are you?”

“Shouldn’t _you_ be the one worrying?”

The hair on Gintoki’s head bristles in warning. “If you’re even _thinking_ of harming them –”

“Relax,” Takasugi rolls his shoulders easily, the smile spreading across his face doing nothing for Gintoki’s suspicions. “The war’s over, remember? I should be insulted you still think so lowly of me even after I saved their lives. More than once, I might add.”

“Funny, I can remember all the times you tried to take away what they loved. You know I don’t forget so easily.”

It lingers in the air between them, a reminder of their past. But Takasugi brushes it aside with a shrug.

“I’m not asking for your forgiveness. Just wondering where your two permanent shadows are.”

Gintoki hardens his gaze, chin jutting out. “They can look after themselves now.”

“Is that so?” Takasugi tilts his head in an amused gesture. “But then, children who grow up in war have no choice.”

“They’re not like us,” and Gintoki surprises himself at the force of his words. “They had more to fight for and protect – their families, their lives here in this dump of a district. Not that they’re ‘innocent’ by any measure, but they remembered what was truly at stake. They did themselves proud.”

He swallows the waver in his voice.

“Gintoki, it was the leftovers of our war you dragged them into.”

“And they made it out without losing sight of what was truly important.”

They hadn’t lost themselves in the thickets of vengeance or crawled away through mud and death defeated. Gintoki knows it took him too long to forgive himself these things, but he’s glad his children never succumbed to them in the first place. They’re stronger than they give themselves credit for. Stronger than him and Takasugi, as much as the latter might deny it.

Strength is not brute force or the whisper of steel against skin. Strength is finding the will to come home alive, bruised and battered but prepared to keep on going.

“Aren’t we sentimental today?” his old comrade smirks. Gintoki can just about imagine the curl of smoke coiling from Takasugi’s pipe. “Dare I say you’re getting on in your years?”

“You and me both,” Gintoki replies.  

“Touché.” He turns his eye skywards, voice lilting. “Your young charges are already learning to live without you.”

Voices rise and ebb around them in the ensuing silence, light glancing off the golden butterflies embroidered on Takasugi’s kimono. He is not wrong. But Gintoki wishes for a moment the world would stop mocking him.

*

Whatever Gintoki’s private reservations, Odd Jobs isn’t over yet. Kagura and Shinpachi are still around, albeit less frequently. Most of their clients Gintoki can handle himself; minor handyman jobs that require a toolbox or a bit of muscle, sometimes a steely disposition and vast reserves of patience. He doesn’t always have the complete package and can feel at a loss without Kagura’s boisterous strength or Shinpachi’s overbearing pedantry, but he does his best.

On occasion, Shinpachi invites him to the dojo to help train the new recruits. Gintoki isn’t entirely sure what to feel about younger generations taking up the way of the samurai. He hopes they’ll never have to raise a sword in real battle. Some of the young ones are rambunctious brats, the runts of the litter so used to proving themselves they didn’t realise they were more than worthy long ago.

He ruffles their hair, exasperated and amused by the bursts of warmth that roll over him when they make bounds and leaps in their training. Whatever is left of Shouyou stirs in Gintoki’s chest, indelibly human.   

“Who would’ve thought,” Shinpachi marvels, “that the near annihilation of the Earth would do more for recruitment than chocolate macadamias?”

“Psssh, I could’ve told you that.”

“If you’re so knowledgeable, why don’t you help out Aneue?”

Gintoki grimaces, knowing better than to put his life on the line for “practice” with Otae, who is constantly on the prowl for “participants” in her lessons with the girls. At least that much hasn’t changed. 

And although Shinpachi offers the dojo’s training swords, Gintoki sticks to his old, battered, but ever-faithful Lake Toya. If he can use it to defeat a near omnipotent and godlike being, then it’s good enough for sparring with snot-nosed brats.

*

An obnoxiously bright summer morning sees Shinpachi arriving earlier than usual, greeted by the sight of his two co-workers sleepwalking their way through the remains of breakfast.

He flops onto the sofa after a brief “hello” to the both of them, grabbing the remote to watch the morning news. He pauses mid-motion.

“What happened to the TV?”

Kagura casts him a dirty look as if it’s his fault that the screen is cracked and antennae comically crooked, but deigns to answer. “Hasn’t been working since Sadaharu sat on it yesterday.”

“He _WHAT?_ ” Shinpachi shrieks, eyes popping wide and on the verge of a straight-man routine. “Gin-san,” he rounds on the superbly unperturbed samurai now browsing the day’s paper, “can’t you fix it?”

“Hm,” he considers, lifting a page between finger and thumb. “For ten thousand yen I might.”

“GIN-SAN,” Shinpachi yells. “It’s your own television, you can’t charge me to hire you to fix it!”

“I’ll do it later.” He’s got the time.

“You can’t leave it forever.”

Petulantly, Gintoki sticks out his tongue. “Watch me.”

*

On a perfectly normal morning, Gintoki wakes to find his sword has sprouted flowers overnight.

“Huh,” he exclaims, and figures he shouldn’t sleep so late. There’s only so much he can muse about in the depths of the night, though none of it so traumatic it would transform his sword into a tree branch. The next time he wakes up, the flowers are still there. Maybe there’s just something wrong with his eyes? When was the last time he went to the optometrist? But the flowers feel real, soft and silky under his thumb.

He takes it with him into the living room, where the mid-morning rays have crept well over the coffee table. Kagura is rooting through the fridge for food, looking up grumpily as he taps her on the shoulder.

“Say, Kagura-chan, what do you see?” He holds Lake Toya up for her to inspect.

“A branch? Whose garden did you rob? Is it edible? We’re out of food again.”

So it’s definitely not a dream, nor a hallucination of which he is the only lucky target. He’s not sure whether that makes it worse. Now everyone can laugh at him and his… tree.

“It’s not edible, it’s my soul! My pride as a samurai!”

“And how am I supposed to function without food?” she snaps back. “And if you tell me to buy my own, I would, but you never pay us!”

She _does_ have a point, a grudgingly conceded one. As lovely as winning the battle against Utsuro was, its material rewards were few and far between. Gintoki isn’t one to take his life for granted, and he’s glad to have made it out alive (an understated achievement), but some remuneration wouldn’t have gone amiss.  

“You’re the one who eats everything,” he grouses in return, and pushes a hand through his unruly silver perm. It’s probably the sun, but the sword – branch? – whatever it is – hums warmly in his hand like a living thing. If it’s trying to convey a message, Gintoki doesn’t want to hear it. His sword is his soul, the embodiment of his being as a samurai, and no samurai worth their salt walks around with a damn tree for protection.

*

Like any self-respecting tree, the sword is sturdy, and since no one can think of a reasonable course of action (“I’m not letting Sadaharu chew on that, your greasy fingers have been all over it!”) they stick it in a pot, pack some earth around it, and congratulate each other on a fine addition to the apartment’s non-existent décor that even Otose wouldn’t be able to gripe about.

“It might even add some value to this place,” Gintoki declares.

“Do you think we need to water it?” Shinpachi frets.

“Stop worrying, Shinpachi. If it dies, it dies. Survival of the fittest.”

“Did you learn that from one of your ‘documentaries’”?”

“Anego says it all the time about Gorilla.”

They water it every now and then, and mostly in jest; its care is left mostly to Gintoki, who can barely remember to give it its daily drink if not for Shinpachi’s reminders. He doesn’t see the point – it’s not as if his sword is a real tree even if it looks and grows like one, and he’s never had a green thumb – but it gives him something to do between their infrequent job requests. Deeper down, he knows the tree will be his only company once Kagura and Shinpachi move out for good. It wouldn’t do to kill it.

*

Gintoki isn’t sure how word got out that his precious Lake Toya is a _tree,_ of all things (even a screwdriver would’ve been better), but one day Katsura appears in their apartment, inspecting the leaves.

“I rather like it,” he says to the sound of Gintoki’s exasperated groan. “Do you water this daily? Give it fertiliser? Put it out in the sun?”

“Nobody asked you, ex-terrorist. Go stick your nose into someone else’s business.”

“Leader, do you water this daily?”

Kagura nods. “Uh-huh. Or at least Shinpachi does. He worries too much.”

Katsura strokes his chin in silent contemplation as if Gintoki isn’t flapping his arms yelling, “get out of here”, and touches a bud.

“You are very fortunate, Gintoki.”

The samurai in question just snorts, but gives up herding him out.  

*

“You’re here earlier than usual, aren’t you?”

Gintoki looks up at the rattling of the shoji, Shinpachi ducking in with a brief nod. Kagura is out visiting her father and brother after promising to return in time for lunch.

“I wanted to make sure you weren’t neglecting the tree to death.”

“I wouldn’t!” Gintoki splutters. “What do you take me for?”

“An entirely irresponsible adult,” Shinpachi replies. He bends down to prod at the soil with a finger, then squints at the new leaves growing from the body of the sword. Moisture clings to them. “At least you watered it this morning,” he concedes.

“Precisely. You see how seriously I’m taking this?”

Shinpachi straightens with a wry grin. “Are you free this afternoon? Aneue is meeting with Kyubei so I’ve agreed to take her class, and it would help to have an extra pair of hands.”

“Are you paying me?”

“That would be my question,” Shinpachi retorts. “Think of your helping out as paying the backlog of my wages.”   

Gintoki rolls up his sleeves. Lunch first, then teaching brats at the dojo. “Fine. I’ll show you just who’s the irresponsible adult around here.”

*

Sometimes, the tree-sword-thing (they don’t really know what to call it now) makes a noise like wind scraping along its leaves, but there’s never any wind when they hear the sound.

“Is it possessed?” is a question Kagura starts to regularly ask, although Shinpachi thinks her worry has more to do with the horror movies that she watches on late-night TV.

“I’m telling you, Gin-san, you shouldn’t let her stay up so late!”

“She’s a big girl now, she can do what she wants,” Gintoki retorts. He indulges Kagura more often these days, knowing she’ll be gone soon. Let her watch supernatural films with poor CGI and acting if that’s what tickles her fancy. Nothing in those movies matches up to what he’s lived, or, he suspects, to the things she’s seen.

“Don’t blame me if she comes bothering you in your sleep again,” Shinpachi warns.

“Mmph.”

One night, he catches a stream of broken words and something resembling litanies, all delivered in the clumsy but earnest diction of a Yato girl. His heart skips a beat. Should he go out and join her? Tell her to get back to bed? But he shouldn’t intervene so often; she knows what she’s doing. Gintoki closes his eyes, and falls asleep.

The next morning, he finds her curled in front of the pot clutching a tattered book. “Gin-chan,” she mumbles, “I did it. I drove the demon out.”

“Sure did,” he says, and carries her back to the closet. Her weight rests warmly against his chest; she’s heavier than before but he doesn’t mind. Before tucking her in, he brushes a kiss to her forehead.

The sound doesn’t come back, or if it does, it seems to breeze in like the sun after a wild storm, soft and gentle and wind-chiming its way through the leaves. It’s cheaper than buying a wind-chime at any rate, and Kagura is convinced an angel has taken up residence in Lake Toya, so there are no more late night exorcisms and many more pleasant afternoons falling asleep to quiet murmurings.

*

He wakes up one morning and realises he has not dreamt in a long time. There is something marvellously precious about the deep, drifting darkness, no longer cold or frightening. He could consider it a portent of things to come, but the future can take care of itself.

Shinpachi arrives after another half-day at the dojo, wiping sweat off his brow. Seeing they have no new job requests, he bustles about making tea as he always has (but not until he’s checked the tree and nodded at the new growth).

Gintoki watches his small family bicker over the TV remote, which Shinpachi gracefully gives up after a solid hit in the stomach. Wheezing, he rolls his eyes, but doesn’t burst into indignant yelling. Sadaharu’s tail beats a happy rhythm on the floorboards. It strikes Gintoki that this was what he had fought for all along: to see Shinpachi and Kagura grow up, to protect their potential. The moments of _wait-till-you-see-what-we-become_ and _aren’t-you-proud_ he had defended are all now coming together, finally blooming.

“Gin-chan,” Kagura pipes up, remote forgotten on the table, “why are you crying?”

“Shut it,” he wheezes back. “Gin-san is getting old and can’t control where he leaks anymore.”

“Jeez,” Shinpachi sighs, hauling himself off the sofa to fetch a tissue. “What are you going to do without us?”

In the corner, the tree sings.

*

_You can still be a samurai without a sword in your hand,_ he thinks. The hand that once held a weapon are the fingers that curl around a fork; are the same as the ones holding a hammer as he nails the TV back together – things to create and repair, people to protect, friends to love, he can do all of this and more without a sword in his hand. If it resides in his heart, and if the wood flourishes and blooms every season, isn’t that enough? Isn’t that what he’s always wanted?

He has the sense of a new beginning, and seasons that spring anew. The day that Kagura leaves, he and Shinpachi wave her off at the terminal.

“See you later!” he calls, and believes it.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos very welcome and appreciated :)


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